Eric Berger Reimagines Mainstream Entertainment With Crackle

Jerry Seinfeld could get a TV show anywhere, but he’s choosing to create original content with the Web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” on Crackle.com. Credit Berger, who has turned the website into an award-winning, multi-platform entertainment network with original content as good as anything you might see on television.

Crackle was originally a user-generated site; Berger set about putting a different spin on it about two years ago. “We sort of repositioned Crackle into what it is today, which is more akin to how you would program a traditional network to a world where the whole living room has evolved,” says Berger. “Today the living room is connected through gaming consoles and gaming devices and smart TVs and mobile tablets and your phone in an anytime way. Crackle is designed for that world.” Though the site boasts an impressive amount of films, it is not an aggregation site. “Like a network, we have a lot of library movies and TV shows, but the originals are a really important piece for us that has to stand up to the quality of our library programming.” Those originals include not only Seinfeld’s show but “Chosen,” starring and executive produced by Milo Ventimiglia, and the comedy “Jailbait” from comic John Lehr.